Ross Kitson profile

Place of birth: Leeds, West Yorks

Ross Kitson's 13 reviews

Artifact of Evil by Gary Gygax (Greyhawk Adventures)

It’s always a risky venture re-reading books that you enjoyed in the past, especially ones you read as a teen-geek. Even throughout the space of a year our tastes and preferences fluctuate with our moods and our need to move from, say, the pure escapism of Brandon Sanderson to the gritty realism of George ‘whose next for the chopping...

6.0/10

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The Suicide Exhibition by Justin Richards

Wewelsburg Castle, 1940. The German war machine has woken an ancient threat - the alien Vril and their Ubermensch have returned. Ultimate victory in the war for Europe is now within the Nazis' grasp.England, 1941. Foreign Office trouble shooter Guy Pentecross has stumbled into a conspiracy beyond his imagining - a secret war being wag...

8.0/10

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The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt

Stephen Hunt’s first book in his Jackellian series, The Court of the Air, is a curious beast and one in which I oscillated in my love-hate of to the very last page.Hunt published the book with Harper-Collins in 2007, having already built up a profile through his sci-fi review/forum. In many ways it has the hallmarks of a first novel...

6.0/10

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Grandville Mon Amour by Bryan Talbot

The second outing to Bryan Talbot’s anthropomorphic world follows hot on the heels of the cataclysmic conclusion of book one. The beefy badger DI Archie LeBrock is languishing in self-pity, driven to drink (as every good copper should be) by the guilt of Sarah’s murder. When his partner, Roderick Ratzi, informs him of the escape of M...

9.0/10

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Nomad of Time Streams by Michael Moorcock

Out of all speculative fiction authors, Michael Moorcock dominates my TBR list. Part of that is his prolific back catalogue, and part of it is the fact he has written so very much in so many genres. The Nomad of Time, which has recently been re-released in its three original books on Kindle, is a book I have been curious about ever since I start...

7.0/10

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White Mountain by Sophie E Tallis (The Darkling Chronicles)

After a long stretch of reviewing seminal fantasy works it was quite refreshing to read something fresh and newly released, and it was with a certain enthusiasm that I tackled White Mountain by Sophie Tallis.White Mountain is the first book in the Darkling Chronicles and follows the adventures of a sorcerer, Marval Agyk, the Green Wizard ...

7.0/10

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The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny

I’ll readily confess that I’ve dipped in and out of Roger Zelazny’s Great Book of Amber for many months, partly because other books intruded, partly because of the natural break half way through the tome, and partly because no work since George RR Martin’s ongoing Song of Fire and Ice has generated such conflicting emotio...

6.5/10

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Grandville by Bryan Talbot

First off, a confession. I’ve been a fan of Bryan Talbot for many years, having first read his work during the late Eighties as he completed his Luther Arkwright series. At that stage he drew a number of strips for the UK comic 200AD, and subsequently some for US comics, such as Sandman. In my opinion he is one of the most underrated...

8.0/10

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Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson (Fantasy Masterworks)

There’s a certain irony that a novel whose primary theme is based around a Danish engineer being taken out of his own time and thrust into a fantasy world feels so out of place for when it was written.Anderson’s seminal fantasy work, Three Hearts and Three Lions, was first written as a serialised novella in the 50s, an era of ...

9.5/10

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The Mystic Accountants by Will Macmillan Jones (The Banned Underground)

I’m the first to admit that I’ve never been a big fan of comedy-fantasy. It’s not that I’m surly or lacking in humour—indeed I enjoy amusing lines and scenes within novels—it is simply that satirising fantasy doesn’t do it for me. I am certain that this originates from an intrinsic need to defend the gen...

9.0/10

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The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman (The Left Hand of God Trilogy)

The Sanctuary of the Redeemers: vast, desolate, hopeless. Where children endure brutal cruelty and violence in the name of the One True Faith. Lost in the Sanctuary's huge maze of corridors is a boy: his age uncertain, his real name unknown. They call him Cale. He is strange and secretive, witty and charming - and violent. But when he opens ...

7.3/10

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Infernal Devices by KW Jeter

Infernal Devices: a mad Victorian fantasy by KW Jeter. Jeter is often credited, erroneously, with kicking off the sci-fi sub-genre Steampunk. To be accurate it was Jeter who first coined the phrase, in a letter to the sci-fi magazine Locus, to describe the theme of both his and his chum Tim Powers’ novels. The origin of Steampunk as a genr...

7.0/10

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Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance

Being asked to review Jack Vance’s Tales of the Dying Earth is akin to a music journalist been given a Beatles album and asked what do they think? Vance’s seminal work is regarded with reverence in many esteemed quarters. Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun (one of the genre’s standards) draws heavily on it. The Godfathe...

8.0/10

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